Patience Jonathan may forfeit N10bn hotel to FG over Skye Bank funds
Tue Sep 13, 2016 01:24:pm National
2.5K By Buchi Obichie
According to a source at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,
EFCC, the wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Dame Patience
Jonathan, may forfeit to the Federal Government, a N10bn hotel allegedly
belonging to her if she fails to explain how she came about some funds
allegedly traced to her accounts in Skye Bank.
"This is one of the questions she may have to answer as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission continues investigation into the $20m found in five accounts she has laid claim to," the source disclosed.
The former First Lady inaugurated the hotel, which is known as Aridolf Resort Wellness and Spa, Yenagoa, in April 2015, barely a month before the end of her husband's tenure.
According to a UK business newspaper,The Financial Times,the hotel, which has imported state-of-the-art furniture, can compete with other luxury hotels in developed countries.
The report dated April 21, 2015, states in part, "The Aridolf Hotel in Yenagoa is an unlikely monument to kitsch on a reclaimed swamp in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta. In the lobby, Louis XIV furniture is accompanied by bowls of plastic fruit, faux Dutch landscapes and a grotesquely gaudy chandelier. The hotel is redolent of the riches on display in a region that for half a century has generated the bulk of Nigeria's wealth.
"The Aridolf, which is owned by Patience Jonathan, wife of the former President, is symptomatic of how superficial progress has been in addressing the festering sense of marginalisation in the region, which remains desperately impoverished despite benefiting from a tide of petrodollars in recent years."
"This is one of the questions she may have to answer as the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission continues investigation into the $20m found in five accounts she has laid claim to," the source disclosed.
The former First Lady inaugurated the hotel, which is known as Aridolf Resort Wellness and Spa, Yenagoa, in April 2015, barely a month before the end of her husband's tenure.
According to a UK business newspaper,The Financial Times,the hotel, which has imported state-of-the-art furniture, can compete with other luxury hotels in developed countries.
The report dated April 21, 2015, states in part, "The Aridolf Hotel in Yenagoa is an unlikely monument to kitsch on a reclaimed swamp in Nigeria's oil-producing Niger Delta. In the lobby, Louis XIV furniture is accompanied by bowls of plastic fruit, faux Dutch landscapes and a grotesquely gaudy chandelier. The hotel is redolent of the riches on display in a region that for half a century has generated the bulk of Nigeria's wealth.
"The Aridolf, which is owned by Patience Jonathan, wife of the former President, is symptomatic of how superficial progress has been in addressing the festering sense of marginalisation in the region, which remains desperately impoverished despite benefiting from a tide of petrodollars in recent years."
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